Editorial StaffWesleyan’s fire arts and performance group, Prometheus, performed on Andrus Field on Sept. 3. Prometheus, a student group established in 1997, safely shares the art of fire performance through practice and teaching.
Steve ScarpaAndrus Field turned into a forum of ideas on August 31 with the return of the yearly Academic Fair, held on August 31. The fair was a staple of university life before the pandemic, offering new students the chance to peruse Wesleyan’s array of academic classes. “I’ve definitely seen a lot of wonderful academic opportunities that I want to pursue,” said Keith Do ’27, who is interested in computer science. Under a large white tent near Usdan, faculty enthusiastically explained their offerings to first year students less than 24 hours into their Wesleyan experience. The students moved from table to…
Mike MavredakisOpen trunks as far as the eye could see. Open eyes wandering all over—up into the rainy sky above, out past Andrus Field and up Foss Hill toward the Van Vleck Observatory, and down toward Usdan where Wesleyan’s newest attendees would eat their first meals as students. The new students arriving in Middletown on Aug. 30 for their first day on campus had an air of openness and curiosity about them. For many of the students moving in, it was that same openness that drew them to Wesleyan in the first place. An open-minded community, an open curriculum, being open…
The interests and accomplishments of Wesleyan’s current cohort of Fulbright Fellowship recipients is diverse, ranging from education to translation to refugee reception to tracing ancient trade routes across the Mediterranean. “This reflects something that I’m not sure people realize about the Fulbright program: with hundreds of distinctly different grants available across more than 140 countries, there’s no one cookie cutter Fulbrighter,” said Erica Kowsz, Associate Director for Fellowships. Nick Bowman ’23, Margalit Katz ’22, Ben Levin ’23, Emily McDougal ’23, and Anna Tjeltveit ’23 will fan out across the globe for their Fulbright years starting this Fall. “With two…
Andrew ChatfieldWesleyan University’s Center for the Arts (CFA) starts a celebration of its 50th birthday in September. The 2023-2024 season features live performances and exhibitions that reflect on the roots of the center while also bringing new artists and works to campus. Director Joshua Lubin-Levy ‘06 said he and his staff want to hear from anyone who has engaged with the CFA over the years. The CFA’s curatorial team will be asking students, faculty, staff, and visiting artists to join them in their reimagining of what it means to center art in the context of a liberal arts education. “As with…
Sarah ParkeAfter a four-year hiatus due to construction and COVID-19 restrictions, Wesleyan’s Summer Film Series returned this past July with a trio of films showcasing international settings as part of the “Big Screen Vacations” theme. The Summer Film Series was launched by the film department in 2007 with the goals of offering free-of-charge programming to local audiences, welcoming new people to campus, and making use of the state-of-the-art Goldsmith Family Cinema at the Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies during summer breaks. Today, audience members are an eclectic mix of Middletown community members, Wesleyan faculty, and students doing summer work or…
On the surface, the annual poster session held in Exley Science Center looked like an average scientific poster presentation. A couple hundred students lined up side-by-side, standing anxiously next to their tripod-hoisted poster boards waiting for passersby to ask them about their colorful charts and graphs. For the attendees, it could be their chance to learn about something new. For each presenter, the poster was the culmination of their curiosities, a spotlight on all their hours spent tucked under the lab lights or sifting through ocean sediment samples. “I love coming together as a community on this day,” Seth Redfield,…
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited Wesleyan University on July 28 for a roundtable discussion with first-generation students on the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to advance diversity and opportunity in higher education. Cardona engaged with students about how diversity is important to their learning experiences, bilingualism, having staff that represent their student populations, and culturally relevant teaching. He also sought advice on how to elevate students’ voices and what they want Washington to do to further this charge. “Each one of these students here today told me that one of the things they love about Wesleyan is learning in an…
Wesleyan President Michael S. Roth ’78 announced that Wesleyan University was formally ending admission preference for children of alumni, following the recent Supreme Court decision to end affirmative action, in a message to the University community on July 19. “We still value the ongoing relationships that come from multi-generational Wesleyan attendance, but there will be no ‘bump’ in the selection process,” Roth wrote in his message. “As has been almost always the case for a long time, family members of alumni will be admitted on their own merits.” The University’s decision garnered national and international media attention from many outlets,…
Wesleyan University’s campus sustainability efforts have been awarded Gold status by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability In Higher Education’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (AASHE STARS), a self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance. Wesleyan had been at a silver status since first tracking its sustainability performance in 2013. However, there had been incremental improvement at the end of each three-year tracking cycle. Jen Kleindienst, Wesleyan’s sustainability director, attributed the leap to Gold status to the University’s Sustainability and Environmental Justice Pedagogical Initiative, a concerted effort to seed these topics in all aspects…
At the sound of an emphatic drumbeat, the Class of 2023 and the faculty who led them to their degrees marched from atop Foss Hill on Sunday morning for Wesleyan's 191st Commencement. Smiles of celebration and stares of reflection were scattered among the crowd of students and their loved ones. Here is a selection of photographs from the special day:
In speaking to the Class of 2023, Larry McHugh, who was named an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at Wesleyan’s 191st Commencement Ceremony, celebrated the longstanding connections—educational, economic, and social—between the University and the greater Middletown community. “Wesleyan is not only an outstanding educational institution but also an economic powerhouse, not only in generating jobs, but by using many of our businesses for products and services in our region which really creates more jobs and taxes for our city,” McHugh told the audience. McHugh was president of the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce for 39 years before retiring in 2022,…